Internet discovers high school student who achieved dream of working for Nintendo

Who hasn’t, at some point, dreamt of working for their favourite company?

Corey Bunnell.

Back in 2007, American high school student Corey Bunnell asked the internet for help so he could get his dream job: working for Nintendo.

He already knew some Japanese and had been to Japan as part of his school’s exchange programme. But he wanted to become fluent in the language – and more than anything else, he wanted to work for the company which had made his favourite game, Mario.

10 years later, he’s doing just that.

Corey’s old forum post came to light over the weekend after a Reddit user Tizzlefix spotted Corey’s name in the credits of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. A quick Google of “Corey Bunnell” uncovered the post from 10 years back.

The story sparked interest on Twitter, too, where fellow Nintendo developer Jordan Amaro confirmed to Eurogamer that Corey was on staff, and it was indeed the same chap.

As one of the few Western names in Zelda’s credits, Corey’s stands out – enough that it prompted interest in who he was.

Since then, Corey has become something of a celebrity among Nintendo fans – a kid who posted online about working for Nintendo who actually went on to achieve his dream.

Corey worked on Zelda: Breath of the Wild as part of its wildlife team, designing the game’s menagerie of animals which inhabit its huge open world.

“My dream is to live in Japan and work for Nintendo as a game designer,” he wrote in his forum post, 10 years ago. “I realise this is a very large goal but it has been my dream since I first played Mario.

“I need help figuring out how to achieve this goal. I know I would need to goto a game design school of some sort, and also get my Japanese to a level where I can speak and write professionally.”

About Ryan

I'm a true gamer. I'm not a pro gamer but ill never stop playing games. My choice of console is PlayStation, but each to their own. I unfortunately do not get as much time as i would like to still play games, but when i do, i love it!